They’re not exactly the “new” Twins, given that eight players in the starting lineup were on the team in April. But Friday’s 9-4 thrashing of the Royals sure felt like the Target Field debut of something different, didn’t it?
Six Twins collected two or more hits, five of them drove in runs, and the Twins won their third consecutive game for the first time in more than a month.
Joe Ryan coughed up a 418-foot home run to the first batter he faced, Royals outfielder Mike Yastrzemski, but never allowed another Royal to touch third base in his five-inning stint, which earned him his 11th victory of the season.
That part was familiar. But the offense? Even the 28,242 who braved suffocating humidity on a 90-degree night, a crowd that had reason to be skeptical of a team that hasn’t seen .500 since mid-June, seemed charmed by the way the Twins strung together hit after hit.
Matt Wallner homered in the first inning, his 16th of the season, to start things off. After a walk and a single, Luke Keaschall extended his on-base streak to all 10 games of his MLB career, only the second Twin (alongside Glenn Williams in 2005) to reach double digits. That hit also drove in a run, as did Royce Lewis’ groundout moments later.
An inning later, three hits and a walk added two more, with Ryan Jeffers collecting the first of his three hits, and Keaschall adding another RBI single.
Jeffers was on base in the fourth inning when Kody Clemens homered onto the right-field plaza, and again in the sixth inning, his RBI single driving in the lone Twins newcomer, Alan Roden. Lewis also doubled home a run, but the Twins had two runners thrown out at the plate during the inning to short-circuit the rally.
Travis Adams relieved Ryan in the sixth and immediately surrendered another home run, a 456-foot blast into the third deck in left-center by Bobby Witt Jr. That’s right, all three home runs Friday were hit by the descendants of former big-leaguers (Carl Yastrzemski, Roger Clemens and Bobby Witt).
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